In April, the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Executive Council approved a report from the Cell Phone Task Force. The report, along with the special POQ issue on cell phones, provides a comprehensive look at the impact of cell phones on telephone surveys. They also identify the research that is needed to bring cell phone interviewing into the everyday part of telephone surveys. The report is long but has important information in it. Well worth the time to read it.

Book Reaction (not a book review) – Earlier this year, I read Conrad and Schober’s new book – Envisioning the Survey Interview of the Future. It is an edited volume and the chapters are written by experts in survey research and in other professions that may be involved in future developments in survey methodology. The book is important and contains much valuable information for survey researchers. You can learn more about IVR and ECAs (avatar interviewing).

You should read it, especially if you want to find out about ECAs and survey research. However, at the end, I didn’t think that it had much for me, in my day-to-day activities as a survey center director, to act on now. It’s still too early to predict how these new methods will evolve.

Takeaway: Read it; it’s an important book that contains good information on where survey interview may go in the next few years. But, it doesn’t have much information that would be used to change your organization or operations.

Speaking of survey centers, about 30 directors of academic survey research organizations met in Berkeley in early March to discuss issues related to our niche in the survey world. The group has been meeting informally since 1995. At the New Orleans AAPOR conference, the group passed the bylaws and the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations (AASRO) is now organized.

Question of the month – do you think IRBs are easing up on survey research? From my observations and what I hear, I think they are starting to realize the nature of risk in survey research and are making it easier for protocols to be approved. What do you think?

If you have thoughts or issues that you would like included in Fieldnotes, send them to survprac@indiana.edu.